"Dislike" Button Scam Hits Facebook Users 179
An anonymous reader writes "A message saying 'I just got the Dislike button, so now I can dislike all of your dumb posts lol!!'
is spreading rapidly on Facebook, tempting unsuspecting users into believing that they will be able to "dislike" posts as well as "like" them.
However, security researchers say that it is just the latest 'survey scam', tricking Facebook users into into giving a rogue Facebook application permission to access their profile, and posting spam messages from their account.
The rogue application requires victims to complete an online survey (which makes money for the scammers) before ultimately redirecting to a Firefox browser add-on for a Facebook dislike button developed by FaceMod.
"As far as we can tell, FaceMod aren't connected with the scam — their browser add-on is simply being used as bait," says Sophos security blogger Graham Cluley."
And? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is not new news, really. There is always some scam going around that takes advantage of the inability of most users to distinguish untrusted content from trusted content, not to mention the people who click Yes to every pop-up without understanding what they've just done.
Facebook is a gold mine for scams like this. There are way too many people using the site that don't care about the dangers. Apathy and ignorance are best ways to spread this kind of thing, and they are found aplenty in any social networking crowd, at least when it comes to the technology behind the social aspect.
I dislike (Score:1, Insightful)
everyone of you jerks who beat me to the coveted 'first post'. I dislike you all, a lot.
In other news (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Mod the post (Score:5, Insightful)
Why should I care about the scuttlebutt of the internet.
Don't know about you, but a lot of my friends use it, and guess who gets to clean up the mess every time they fall for something like this.
Re:Mod the post (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know... are they responsible for themselves?
Oh, that's right, they never have to learn because you'll be there to fix the problem every time.
Re:Mod the post (Score:5, Insightful)
It takes a village to raise an idiot...
Re:Mod the post (Score:4, Insightful)
A bot-net gets bigger.
A granny can't use her machine.
Evil porn is served up from Teh Gran Machine.
The state kick down Gran's door and take her away.
Gran gets 30 years in jail. She's 96.
I missed out profit & base ownership claims. It is all bad for Gran.
Re:Mod the post (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, please. Swiss. Just the holes (they taste better), if you don't mind, and even if you do. Thanks for asking.
!news (Score:5, Insightful)
You have many amateur users who don't understand the first thing about security, and you have millions of them. Millions! Make something that looks slightly "official," and you've got it made. (Remember the old antivirus popups on websites?)
We basically have a conglomerated database of targets for any exploit in a system that changes its layouts and features so frequently that no one can ever recognize that something looks a little off...
Re:Facebook (Score:3, Insightful)
I have never gotten malware/spyware from an online social site.
Or so you think. It could be that you have caught one of the ~50% of unknown viruses out there via a mere flash/java exploit... and a good one, you'd never know.
Reminds me of the old adage that if you want computer security, unplug the network cable and disable all removable drives.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
The blame here is Facebook's. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Easiest way to black facebook (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Loathing for facebook. (Score:4, Insightful)
it's great for coordinating IRL activities like parties, birthdays, the nicer kind of activism, etc...
So was MySpace, your point?
Most of the hate about Facebook is that they are hypocritical and do not care about the values of humans. They will lie to you to get you to post private data up, make it appear as of your privatizing it, then make it so it's public. They'll also harvest (farm? data mine?) information and sell it.
Other than that, they're great. Uh huh.
Re:Facebook (Score:2, Insightful)
I'll admit it's handy, but the most useful? I actually laughed out loud when I read that.
It's just a website with people inserting data, and you get to search and read it. There are also "applications" that you can use, but they are basically wastes of time IMHO. In the end, it's a pretty version of MySpace.... only without the hiphop & latino gangsta bullshit.
There is no "most useful" application ever on the Internet. That term always is subjective, as I consider google mail to be the most useful, with rudder.com being the second most useful for my uses. (financial organization) You may not agree with my decisions, but it has as much credence as your stating that Facebook is one of th emost useful applications ever on the Internet.
I guess to sum it up, it's not the code that does it, it was simply that it was something people went to as an alternative. Before the mass migration, it was simply because "It's where adults go, it's hosted by a college". It ended up hitting critical mass, and then commercial entities acknowledged it in order to ply their wares.
4chan is not your personal army (Score:3, Insightful)
It's "stories" like this that make me wonder if people are trying to use Slashdot to get experienced people to do something about it so they don't have to.
Re:There SHOULD be all kinds of buttons (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, I think you just described what 4chan would be like with buttons.
Hmm, if you go in /b/ you'll clearly see they're quite satisfied with artistically rendering their response into the form of an image that captures every poignant detail of their deep, meaningful logic.
Re:!news (Score:3, Insightful)
(Remember the old antivirus popups on websites?)
Old? Those started becoming popular what? 2-3 years ago? And they are STILL popular, and STILL very nasty.